It's interesting to think about the matter of sex, because at the time of writing Forster was a virgin, and said later on that he might have changed things in the book had that not been the case. We can only speculate as to what those parts of the book would be, but I wonder if he might have allowed Maurice a bit more sexual freedom at this particular point. Hopefully not foisting himself on Dickie but the Frenchman, I agree, might have done him some good. Just to get a bit of release after being so restrained all those years. And i don't think that would have diluted what he experiences with Alec later on. he's had years of an emotional relationship, so what would be wrong with some sex, then the two combined perfectly in the one person.

I wondered about him separating love and sex, and felt I might be chanelling Laurie from The Charioteer a bit since he says he can't do anything unless he feels something for the person. Would that really be the case with Maurice? After all his recent restraint and inability to feel anything, I wonder if sex would help him to release a lot of the remaining tension. This may have made him more aware of Alec as a sexual being earlier on, though, and their scenes may have played out a bit differently. For instance, Maurice doesn't really know what he's doing when he calls from his window - if he'd already had a sexual relationship I think he may be a bit more aware.